Searching for Brakemen: A Small Collection of Tall Tales, Short Poems, and One Play

By Scott F. Gandert

If youve ever wondered what happened to some of the people you remembered as a kid, you know, the local big shot sitting on the bench outside the courthouse flipping a quarter, and maybe that friendly lady at the Dairy Queen whod give you an extra scoop, or that cigar-smoking gas attendant at Sunoco, and how bout that guy youd hope to see every Saturday about 4:04 p.m. standing on the back of the caboose waving a big wave to you and your friends. Theyre all here along with bits and pieces of places and lost faces. Searching For Brakeman is a short, targeted account of jogged memories, wrong turns, and lucky breaks. Take a look and let me know if you meet anyone youve forgotten, as you walk yourself down the street in neighborhoods both lost and found. Searching For Brakemen covers alot of stops, from home and hearth, to careful alleys and hills, to foreign countries with familiar faces. Youll meet magnificent misfits, passive palukas, and mysterious dames- a couple of talking cats too.

These tall tales taste of mulligan stew. And thats a dish that stays with you until the end./p>

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491764473

Scott F. Gandert

Born and raised outside a Midwest prison town, the author studied English at a small Florida college designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. After a brief career as a substitute teacher, he completed an advanced degree in Pastoral Counseling Psychology and moved back to Florida where he worked many years in the mental health and employee assistance field. Later he moved to San Francisco and worked closely with railroad unions as the marketing director for a local hospital. The author has traveled most of the United States and Europe. In 2001 he earned an MBA with an emphasis in international healthcare. He is married to the girl of his dreams, a successful actress and voiceover talent. He makes his home in the suburban South with five indoor cats and many outside birds. He enjoys playing piano, drinking strong coffees, and shooting black and white photos. This is his third collection of stories and poems.

Book preview

SEARCHING FOR BRAKEMEN

A small collection of tall tales, short poems, and one play

Copyright © 2015 Scott F. Gandert.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6446-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6447-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date:   04/09/2015

Contents

The Bet

Merit Badge

No More Change

Nine by Nine

Dead Man’s Handle

When Bonnie Met Clyde

Relative Haircut

After the laundry

Jinks: A Reluctant P.I.

TIDE (A Dirty Play)

Kitchen

Chaise Lounge

Weather Report

The Last Wednesday

Where’d You Get That Go-to-hell Hat?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Count On It

Stoneman Blues

California Side A

MVP

Nothin’ to Write Home About

Two Good Girls

The Last Brakeman

Take Us With You

John Glenn

For Tam

-we’re sticked

Special thanks to Tim Thompson, my editor at large, for setting me straight on how to calculate dog years and make tuna fish sandwiches.

And to Dr. Robert L. Zimmerman and Steven G. Stone for your encouragement and support. Thanks for taking time to read the early drafts.

The Bet

We watched him do a back-flip

out of a birch tree

at the corner of Townview Circle and

Davis Rd.

His white sweatshirt

hid him quietly near the trunk.

He never got paid the $5 we promised.

I bought two Clark bars

and a pack of Chuckles.

I gave him the black one

and you ate the rest.

Merit Badge

We were at Boy Scout camp during the summer of ’67. Summer of love they called it, but that was California and we were in Ohio. It was late at night and we were talking about our favorite female movie star—Jayne Mansfield. We both liked Jayne because her last name was the same as our hometown. There were other reasons too. The conversation drifted quickly to what we would do if we were alone with Jayne, things that only kids at Boy Scout camp could talk about in canvas- tent secrecy. My buddy said he would be prepared if he ever had the chance with her. That was the Scout motto, Be prepared, so it was kind of a joke. A joke that helped ease the tension and a joke I didn’t really get until later. At 12 years old we’d heard about rubbers but we’d only seen them blown up like balloons. He went on to say he would French kiss her because she was from Paris and that would be a good line to get her in the mood. I chimed in and said I would hypnotize her first and then stand on a stepladder and take her brassiere off. I had already had a lesson in bra-removal from a guy at the tennis court. He’d been around and understood these things. He said, "If you ever get